1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to manufacturing of optical systems, and, in particular, to the manipulation and alignment of an objective lens during manufacture of an optical system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacture of prior optical systems, specific alignment of the objective lens with respect to a storage medium was not critical. In those systems, a spindle which holds the storage medium is aligned with respect to guide rails. A carriage rides along the guide rails, and the objective lens is placed within the carriage. Because the information storage densities used in such optical systems were sufficiently low, and because manufacturing tolerances of the spindle, rails, and objective lens were sufficiently high, specific alignment of the objective lens was not necessary. The objective lens was placed, then tested for alignment within tolerable limits.
Another example of a prior art optical system does perform active alignment of the objective lens. However, the objective lens is fixedly mounted to an actuator, and the objective lens/actuator combination is aligned with respect to a carriage assembly. Once aligned with respect to the carriage assembly, the actuator is mounted to the carriage assembly, which is aligned with respect to the storage medium. This prior art optical system requires that the actuator be alignable with respect to the carriage assembly. Additionally, the actuator/carriage assembly combination is quite large relative to such assemblies in other optical systems.